


two moons falling

by phollie



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Insomnia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 13:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9184789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phollie/pseuds/phollie
Summary: Yuuri and Viktor have a late night talk about anxiety and the moon. Set within the first month of living together in Hasetsu.





	

**two moons falling**

+

 _i can always be found / i can always be found_  
_if you need me / if you need me / if you need me_  
_i can always be found / i can always be found_  
_if you want me to stay / if you want me to stay / if you want me to stay  
_ _i will stay by your side_

\- [the other side of mt. heart attack](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DjwhiXr7Xr_Y&t=ZWVhNTlkNmRiMGU1ZDUwNjI5NzY4NDdkYTE5NmVhNzBiMGM1N2FiNixESXllVTdnTw%3D%3D&b=t%3Azq6mRrlF-13AIwR1w4WWZA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fphollie.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F155358939114%2Ftwo-moons-falling-yuri-on-ice&m=1) // liars

+

Midnight drops its black dress over the sky. Viktor watches it with the detached wonder of watching anything silent and beautiful, but wholly untouchable, and considers the chill in his chest. The heating might stretch to this banquet room of the Katsuki house, warming its bare walls, but it never seems to stretch its way inside of him, and so he sits upright in bed with a plush throw blanket wrapped like a cloak around his shoulders. He rocks back and forth, trying to encourage his body to accept warmth. It isn’t working. It hasn’t worked all night.

His phone shines a digital 1:25am. This is going to hurt in the morning when he has to rise in six hours, but he passes it off with a little puff of breath and burrows deeper into his blanket. His restless brain searches for something to pay attention to, even for just a moment, but his tired body won’t let him find it. Something nags at him from deep down in his belly, something nameless and nervous. But he won’t charge into it. He’ll sit here, rubbing his stomach in sad little circles, staring out into the dark room and listening to Makkachin’s steady snoring. He’ll wait for this feeling to label itself, and when it does, he’ll laugh it off and dub it a fluke. Then, and only then, will he sleep – but not now.

Well. Puppy videos on mobile YouTube it is.

He’s three minutes into his seventh video of a poodle having a fine and handsome day when a new text banners itself along the top of the screen. It’s Yuuri. It reads: _can i come in?_

Before Viktor can even reply, Yuuri sends another. _sorry._

From behind the sliding door, Viktor thinks he can hear the tapping of electronic keys and the little _woop_ sound of a text successfully sent. He smiles, the chill in his chest warming a few degrees. “Come on in, Yuuri,” he says aloud.

There’s a pause before the door slides open. Yuuri looks high-strung and bashful, the hood of a huge gray sweatshirt hanging low over his forehead. Viktor’s heart thumps hard at the sight of him, a silhouette both frumpy and endearing, and leans back against the headboard with a smile. “This is _your_ home,” he muses, “yet you ask for permission to open a door.”

Yuuri tucks his phone into the front pocket of his hoodie. “Well, I mean…this is _your_ room while you’re here, right?”

“That’s fair.” Viktor stretches out his legs in bed, yawns dramatically. “But you can come in and see me anytime. I mean that.”

Yuuri’s eyes are on the floor rather than on Viktor. That hurts, vaguely, but Viktor smiles through it and watches as Yuuri approaches the foot of the bed on unsteady feet. “I wouldn’t want to walk in on you in the middle of something.”

“Like what, Yuuri?”

Yuuri doesn’t answer; Viktor doesn’t expect him to, yet still he hopes something heated will leap out of Yuuri’s chest and they can be done with this pretense of polite, professional distance. Instead, Yuuri pads over to the bedside on socked feet and takes a tentative seat. It takes a while for him to speak, and when he does, it’s on a mumble. “This might sound weird, but…”

Viktor waits patiently, watching him.

“I have this medication I’m supposed to take,” Yuuri says to his lap. He lowers the hood from his head. “It’s supposed to help with anxiety, but I never take it.” There’s a pause. Yuuri rubs the instep of his left foot with his right heel; a comforting tic. “It’s funny, being nervous taking medicine for _being_ nervous, huh?”

Viktor gives a casual shrug. “I think it makes sense.”

Yuuri’s eyes flit over to him. “Really?”

“Sure. Once I knew a skater who was afraid to take vitamins. He was worried he’d have a calcium overdose.”

Yuuri seems to consider that for a moment. A flash of fear shines through his eyes. “Oh, god.”

“Not to say you should add that to your arsenal of things to worry about.”

Yuuri turns to him with a sheepish smile. “Just kidding.”

Viktor lets out a long breath and relaxes back against the headboard. “You’re a good actor. For a moment I thought I’d sent you spiraling.”

Yuuri shakes his head as he pulls his legs up to crisscross atop the bed. He looks so small like this, so nestled up into himself; Viktor wants to barrel forward and wrap his arms around his tininess, but he doesn’t. There’s an ache in that wanting, a sting right in his ribs. He rubs them distractedly as Yuuri begins to speak. “I took one tonight,” he says quietly. “I haven’t in a long time. Not since…almost a year ago, I think? But I haven’t been sleeping right lately, and I started freaking out over the most random things tonight, so…”

“You sound like you’re apologizing. Why?”

“Do I?” Yuuri rubs at his eyes. He suddenly looks so fragile Viktor is afraid even his gaze could splinter him. “That’s weird…I thought I was just talking.”

Moonlight glows in a quiet silver on Yuuri’s profile. His hair is messy and loose, sticking up in little cowlicks along the nape of his neck. Tomorrow he’ll say he needs a haircut soon, and Viktor will tell a half-joke about keeping it just like this, it looks nice, _remember how long my hair used to be_? And maybe Yuuri will turn pink in the cheeks and say yes, he does remember, _but it wouldn’t look that good on me_. And for the rest of the day that accidental compliment will linger in the back of Viktor’s mind, a constant and sweetly nagging thing that, come nightfall, he’ll take to bed and sleep on – and the next morning it’ll still be there, just as beckoning, just as wanting.

Yuuri lets out a heavy breath. “What I mean is, I just need to not be alone while I wait for it to, you know…settle in. It’s the waiting part that makes me anxious. This worry that something will go wrong with the medicine and I’ll get sick or…I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to explain anything,” Viktor says lightly.  

“I know.” Yuuri’s voice is breathy and tight, eyes averted. “I just felt like I needed to get it out and let you know.” After a moment’s silence, he looks to Viktor with a searching, wary look in his eyes. “Did that all make sense?”

“Perfectly.”

Yuuri sighs with relief. Viktor watches his head bow, the muscles of his pretty neck relaxing as he sinks into himself. “Thank you.”

Makkachin makes a soft noise in his sleep, then stirs to lift his head and look at Yuuri. When he scoots along the bed to settle his chin in Yuuri’s lap, Viktor smiles warmly and murmurs, “You have a fan.”

“Hey, buddy,” Yuuri says, kind and welcoming as he pets the dog’s curly head. Makkachin looks up at him adoringly; Viktor relates. “You really are a sweet boy.”

“Oh, he’s big on praise,” Viktor says. “He understands language, I swear on it.”

Yuuri glances up from petting the dog to offer Viktor a little smile. “I believe it. That’s how my dog was, too.”

“Sometimes I like to imagine him as a little old man dressed up in a dog suit.”

Yuuri lets out a sudden snort of laughter, covers his mouth as if to stow it back inside of him. “That’s wild.”

“Think about it! I spoil him absolutely rotten, it’s no wonder he wouldn’t want to come out of hiding. He has it made just like this.”

The sound of Yuuri’s laughter is a charm on Viktor’s ears, reddening them. The sting in his ribs lightens a little, and he rests his palms atop the blanket and drums his fingers idly against its plushness. The sound and motion alerts Makkachin, who bumbles out of Yuuri’s lap and over to Viktor to nudge hard at him with his fuzzy head. Viktor loops his arms around the dog’s back and pats him with vigor, laughing. “Hey, hey, that wasn’t an invitation! Go show Yuuri some love, not me.”

“It’s okay, really,” Yuuri says, bashful all over again. “I got my turn.”

“Here, here.” Viktor beckons to him with a come-hither of his hand, urging him closer. “This boy needs a surplus of love. Look at those eyes.”

Yuuri gazes at Makkachin and caves immediately. His movements are self-conscious as he crawls across the bed until he’s on his stomach, propped on his elbows to pet the dog in gentle sweeps of one palm. Viktor watches the shyness leave Yuuri’s eyes and glow over into a content calm; his tense mouth melts into a smile that Viktor wants to kiss. “It’s nice having a dog in the house again,” he says. “My mom pointed it out today, too. She said it’s like a space has been, uh…how did she say it…oh, that it wasn’t completely _filled_ , not _replaced,_ but that it was a little less empty?”

His speech is slowing down, becoming sleepier. Viktor gives an encouraging nod to let him know he understands, and Yuuri answers it with a distant smile as he keeps petting Makkachin’s back. “That’s how I feel. It’s…it’s nice having you here. Both of you.”

Viktor masks the warmth rising in his chest with an airy laugh. “Well, we’ll both be here for a while, won’t we? Maybe you’ll get sick of us and ship us off to Russia without a look back.”

Yuuri gives an earnest shake of his head as he sits up. “No. I’d never.”

Viktor gives Yuuri’s knee a playful nudge with his toes beneath the blanket. “You’re right. You’d take full custody of Makkachin, leave me childless.”

But Yuuri’s face is unsmiling and stern, strangely serious as he looks squarely at Viktor without wavering. Viktor blinks at him. The room is painfully quiet. Put on the spot, Viktor leans over and flips on the nightstand lamp, which shines out a hazy circle of white-gold light onto the bed. Viktor doesn’t know how someone can look both exhausted and fierce in the same moment, but Yuuri is pulling it off with ease as he stares at him with those probing, sincere eyes. Sensing the tension, Makkachin lets out a huff and hops off the bed to slink out of the room and into the hall.

“Yuuri,” Viktor breathes out, half-laughing, “you know I was kidding, right?”

Yuuri drops his head and rubs at his tired eyes. “Please don’t joke about that. I worry so much.”

“About what?”

A long silence. Viktor leans the barest few inches closer to where Yuuri sits, rests a hand beside his; when Yuuri doesn’t move away, Viktor gently settles his palm atop the other’s hand. “About what?” he asks again, quieter.

Yuuri stares down at Viktor’s hand in its gentle clasp of his own. His eyes lid, and something in the air between them seems to bend and soften, become pliant. With great care and caution, Yuuri turns his hand upward so that their palms press together; Viktor’s breath catches at the gesture and lets his fingers curl lightly around Yuuri’s. Yuuri lets out a breath and turns his heavy eyes to the window. “Oh, hey” he says, “a full moon…”

Viktor’s eyes follow the line of Yuuri’s gaze until he’s half-turned to look out the window with him. The moon hangs in its huge opal disc, full and bright. Out the corner of his eye, he observes Yuuri, who watches the moon with eyes so sweet and honest it almost hurts to look at him.

With his gaze still on the sky, Yuuri asks, “Can I tell you something silly?”

Viktor’s palm is starting to sweat. “Please do.”

“When I was little, I used to get these weird anxiety attacks every time we’d get a new moon. I thought it disappeared and would never come back. So I started reading up on moon cycles, memorizing them, reminding myself the moon never really vanishes and never would, but…” Yuuri gives a wide yawn, covering his mouth with the back of his free hand. “But when you’re little, you don’t really believe that. There’s a term for it, um…oh, object impermanence. If you can’t see it, it isn’t there.”

Moonlight skates over Yuuri’s free hand as it lifts to push his bangs out of his eyes. Viktor watches the fluid motion of his arm, his delicate fingers, the fluff and fall of his dark hair as it settles back into place. All the while, their palms touch atop the blanket in their gentle press, and every few seconds Viktor feels Yuuri squeeze his hand ever so slightly. The gesture is so cautious as to almost be imaginary, but the heat and validation it leaves behind is too real to ignore. Viktor wonders if Yuuri even notices he’s doing it, if the touch is so natural that it doesn’t even need to be questioned. There’s something beautiful in that, he thinks, something pure and painful; he tethers the feeling to himself and revels in it, likens Yuuri’s dreamy, half-asleep face to its own little moon.

“I think,” Yuuri says on a near whisper, “I still do that sometimes. Not just with moons. I’ve grown out of that, luckily…but with other things. It’s harder to place now, but the feeling, it’s still there. And it scares me so much.”

Yuuri begins to lie down on his side, facing Viktor who remains sitting and barely breathing. Should he lie down beside him? Too many times he’s seen Yuuri balk and turn red if he even stands too close, or breathes to him sugar-laced praises over the most ordinary of things. Just yesterday at practice, Yuuri almost melted on the spot from Viktor’s hand idly finding itself in a brief touch to his forearm to explain something. Thoughtless touches simultaneously shivering with too _much_ thought. What should be done?

After a long silence, Viktor asks, “Do you feel that way about people, too?”

Yuuri blinks up at him. His eyes are glassy and already halfway to dreaming. He rubs them as he thinks, then says, “It’s…I mean, it’s a feeling – no, a _fear_ that everything is always on its way out of my life. That everything will leave.”

Viktor says his name very, very quietly.

Yuuri stares up at him for a few quiet beats before turning his face into the pillow. “I think the medicine just kicked in,” he says, muffled. “I should just…”

But his voice trails off before he can finish. Viktor doesn’t know if it’s from exhaustion or something else, but when he asks if he needs the blanket, Yuuri doesn’t respond. His breathing is easy and even, but not steady enough to be a true sleep. Viktor gazes down at him long enough to see the visible slip between half-wakefulness and slumber, and Yuuri falls into it with the grace of something slow-blooming and sainted, even with his glasses crooked, mouth hanging lax. He’ll probably drool. That’s fine.

Gingerly, Viktor eases off Yuuri’s glasses and sets them folded atop the nightstand. Yuuri grumbles a little in his sleep as the blanket is situated and pulled up over him, but he relaxes into its warmth at once and snuggles down deeper into it. Viktor’s heart wants to break at the sight, but he keeps it tightly in place as he switches off the bedside lamp and lies down. A good three quarters of the blanket belong to Yuuri now, leaving Viktor but a sliver. That’s fine, too.

Sleep comes slow. His dreams are restless.

The next morning, he awakes to an empty bed and Yuuri at breakfast laughing out an embarrassed apology for last night. He’ll sleep in his own bed from now on, sorry, sorry, he was probably such a bother coming in so late to talk, he’ll do better next time. Viktor smiles and nods three times over. Tells him it’s fine. Waits for their fingertips to brush over each other’s as they both reach for the sugar.


End file.
